On Saturday, a small group of us embarked on kayaks to explore the southern part of the lake which fed into a small… not sure what you’d call it. Stream? After a lazy morning breakfast, about seven of us headed down. Liz, Uncle Lanny, and I all had our own kayaks while Brandon (who grew up here, and was our navigator) took Ian, and James took Isaac.

Off to the races! The first 10 minutes or so, getting from the dock across the lake was actually quite difficult. When I felt my arms getting a little tired (and knowing it was about an hour out, and an hour back), I thought to myself I’ve made a terrible mistake.

Luckily though, once we got past the main part of the lake, we crossed into a much calmer bit of water with a very slow current that let us take our time.

Brandon, with Ian hanging out in back. I’m sure that extra drag was helping Brandon as he paddled.

We passed an old bench that was in the process of being reclaimed by the lake.

After a while, we arrived at a small overpass (US-12). We found two older gentlemen who were here, taking turns jumping off the bridge. This was a spot Brandon knew about, and we learned from the other guys that he’d been coming here as a kid. More than that, his father also came here as a kid. So jumping from this spot is definitely a long, and old tradition.

After some debate (and soul-searching), James decided he would take the plunge.

The road is quite literally right behind you here, so he opted to walk in fron the side.

Diving in!

Brandon has… done this a few times before. I think this was his second or third jump (and it was a backflip).

Uncle Lanny got some help up, but also decided to go.

Surprisingly, though the water is a bit shallow… it’s about 7 feet deep right in the center. When you go in, your toes just barely touch the bottom before you come back up again.

Knowing that both James and Lanny were afraid of heights, I ended up going as well (though no pictures, unfortunately).

The scariest part was definitely the view from the street, and the actual act of getting up on the ledge. It’s narrow like a balance beam, but I found that it was better to just get up and jump, and not think too much on things.

Here’s what the view looks like, from the road:

On the way back under the bridge, I took some video (of the massive spiders that call that spot home). All I heard from Brandon on entering was “Don’t look up!”

Some swans, on our way home.

Though we had to fight the current going back (and there was another bit of a haul, once we hit the lake)… it wasn’t too bad, all in all. A really great and fun afternoon trip, bridge jumping and all.